EVERY earnest Christian Science practitioner longs for that clear understanding of the Christ which will bring instantaneous healings such as resulted from Jesus' efforts. Mrs. Eddy has given a rule which, if understood and faithfully obeyed, would speed the sincere practitioner far towards the desired goal. On pages 476 and 477 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she states it very simply: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."
Now by some strange perversion many an earnest Christian Scientist, knowing well this rule, starts with error and then tries to work up to Truth; starts with imperfection, and attempts to work out of it into perfection. Although he knows, really, that it is only the truth which heals, he wastes time, prolongs the case, and sometimes falls far short of instantaneous healing by milling about in the muck of error, mortal beliefs and physical symptoms. On pages 11 and 12 of "Rudimental Divine Science" Mrs. Eddy says: "The lecturer, teacher, or healer who is indeed a Christian Scientist, never introduces the subject of human anatomy; never depicts the muscular, vascular, or nervous operations of the human frame. He never talks about the structure of the material body."
Could words be plainer? The little word "never" does not admit of any excuse for conversation about material beliefs, mental pictures about the operations of the so-called human body, and discussions concerning possible bodily symptoms. Symptoms, physical effects, diseases themselves, are mental first and last —mental pictures seemingly externalized. These false beliefs should not be dwelt upon, but replaced by spiritual ideas emanating from divine Mind. Can medical laws, beliefs of age, or physical symptoms ever endow error with power? Did Jesus inquire as to the state of the pulse or temperature, or discuss the processes of disease? He spoke "with authority" to all kinds of diseased beliefs, knowing that to the healing truth neither the name nor the nature of disease is of any importance. To him disease was without substance or place in the realm of Spirit and spiritual man.
